


to overcome the world

by sencha



Category: A3! (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, future!fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-17
Updated: 2017-06-17
Packaged: 2018-11-15 06:14:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11225016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sencha/pseuds/sencha
Summary: Courage is a noun.





	to overcome the world

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Jun for the A3! Hanakotoba Exchange. Hope you like it! <3

_– Veludo TV, OO Aug 20XX_

"Each play we perform is unique. Of course, our aim is to be consistent, but..." On-screen, Tenma presses his lips together, shoots the camera a wry smile. "I think anyone who's come to watch a play can understand the appeal of seeing something special."

The reporter nods understandingly. "MANKAI Company doesn't release recordings, does it."

"Even recordings can't compare to seeing a play live," Tenma replies immediately. The angle changes – a close shot of his face in profile.

"Hm." Yuki turns to the real-life-Tenma squirming on the sofa beside him. "It almost sounded like you were saying something good there."

As expected, Tenma's jaw drops. "What do you mean, almost," he splutters, face twisting so he looks ugly and constipated. He wouldn’t be half as popular if this was his default expression, and Yuki wishes, quite acutely, that he could sew the scowl onto Tenma’s face for good. “What was wrong with it?” Tenma is demanding. “What did I say wrong?”

“You almost mispronounced ‘recordings’,” Banri laughs, shoving him amiably into Yuki. “How old are you again, five?”

Tenma reddens. “H-How dare you!” He fumbles to right himself, getting his sweaty hands all over Yuki’s skirt, pushing Yuki’s arm into the couch. His horrid branded cologne pricks at Yuki’s nose, mangled with the scent of the sunflower oil smeared into his skin.

“Get your disgusting hands off me, you worthless actor,” Yuki yells, shrill and panicked – his voice pierces the air with too much emotion to form excuses for. Banri winces; Tsumugi looks over with his eyebrows slumping down like a dejected dog.

Yuki’s face is hot and his hands clumsy. He adjusts his skirt over his stockings and puts his feet together to stop his legs shaking.

“Anyway,” he murmurs, “don’t touch me.” – and it’s as if all the sharpened words at his disposal have been scattered over the floor by his previous outburst. Now he sounds small and wounded, and Tenma is looking at him with something uncomfortably akin to guilt. “Stop making that _face_ ,” Yuki snarls, because it is infinitely uglier than any of Tenma’s other expressions.

He leaves the room.

 

❀

 

(The first time Yuki meets Tenma, he feels the clothes Tenma is wearing are a complete waste of his reasonably handsome features. Tenma picks jackets that hang too loose over his shoulders; he follows trends and personal preferences without considering what will suit him best. Overall, he displays the same horrific lack of sense with regards to his clothing that he does in every other aspect of his life.

_It’s a shame_ , Yuki thinks, seeing Tenma in costume for the first time. The royal blue makes Yuki’s mind spin and sends his fingers skittering over the cloth. Tenma looks good in rich colours, in gold tones that make his skin shine, and as long as he stays silent he looks exactly the prince they all say he is.

“Not bad,” Yuki concludes with a smile, knowing it gives his words all the weight they need. Tenma splutters something about that being obvious – _who do you think I am?_ – but he looks well satisfied. In the following months, he acquires two slender gold necklaces and a deep blue shirt with a plunging neckline that makes Banri dissolve into laughter for ten minutes.

Yuki feels like he has sunk his needle into new cloth, split the strands irrevocably apart.

It feels good.)

 

❀

 

Tenma doesn’t return that night – Yuki doesn’t expect him to. He hears from Muku who hears from Juza that Tenma is sleeping at Banri’s again. Taichi has work, so Yuki decides to set aside any of his more manual projects and work more on the designs for their upcoming play instead. He ignores the message from Tsumugi asking if he’s okay – Tsumugi is irritatingly perceptive when it comes to picking up on other people’s cues, and Yuki doesn’t enjoy trying to shield against that. If not even that stingy yakuza can do it, Yuki doesn’t stand a chance.

He manages about half an hour of peace before Tsumugi comes personally to confront him.

“Yuki-kun?”

“I’d rather not,” Yuki replies.

Tsumugi’s placating tones carry through the wall, deceptively gentle. “I know that,” he says, “but you know you can talk to us if you need to, right?”

“Yes.”

Yuki doesn’t speak again until he hears Tsumugi’s footsteps retreat down the hall. Only then does he allow himself to lean over the table once more, blinking away the blurred edges from his field of view.

This is one situation he can’t blame Tenma for. In spite of the reticence and the excuses, and behind the slipshod façade of expertise Tenma likes to hide behind, he is at heart honest. He takes only the roles he thinks himself capable of; he praises others when he feels praise is due. If he claims to be able to do something, regardless of whether this is true or not, he will work as hard as is necessary to ensure he can do it when he is required to. Even now, after the months have turned into seasons and years, Tenma wears the costumes Yuki prepares with more reverence than any of the other actors. It’s one of the only good things to come of that latchkey child lifestyle he was raised around.

With this in mind, it’s no wonder that Tenma takes friendship as seriously as he does everything else; he’s not afraid to confront others once he sees past his ego to their struggles. Itaru tells him once that friendship is best proven by helping others when they’re too tired to help themselves, which sounds like a nice sentiment until they all witness Tenma turn into Itaru’s dedicated shower assistant.

To put things in a different light, Tenma is stupid. He has old man hobbies and scrapes through tests by the skin of his teeth; he never realises his exaggerated reactions to the sound of his name in public draw more attention than his actual appearance. Going shopping with him is a nightmare – but he’ll hold all the bags even as he whines to the rooftops about it, and he’ll pay the taxi fare for the ride home, too. And since he’s stupid, since he’s so accustomed to acting out saccharine scripts, he delivers the most embarrassing lines with utter sincerity – lines like _me too_ , or _you shouldn’t have to pretend you’re something you’re not._

Tenma means only the best; he means only what he says. _This isn’t fair to you_ , he tells Yuki, eyes pleading for him to understand, and Yuki agrees.

 

❀

 

(The first time Yuki looks at Tenma is sometime in the winter of his second year of high school. He’s watching him tend to his bonsai plants – the scene has never faded from Yuki’s memory. Tenma’s brow is furrowed slightly, and he’s humming one of the sentimental ballads from a movie he’s starred in. His movements, so flustered when he’s caught unawares, are calm and methodical. It’s like watching a seamstress at her machine, smoothing out the fabric against the needle. The sound of the scissors beats out a rhythm against the rolling vibrato of Tenma’s voice, and Yuki’s heart thrums in his chest, stitching all his memories of Tenma Sumeragi together into this one unending moment.

“You’ve been staring at me for a while,” Tenma comments. He tilts his head, perturbed, but Yuki’s eyes are on the slow rotation of the scissors as he swings it around his fingers.

“Just thinking about how stupid you look,” Yuki replies. He thinks about it for the rest of that day, and for the whole of that night, too. He thinks about the rising line of Tenma’s jaw and the way the cords in his neck strain when he shouts. He thinks about how open Tenma’s face is in the dorms, changing expressions at the drop of a hat, and about the gleam of his cheek under the lights on stage.

Tenma looks _stupid, stupid, stupid_ – Yuki repeats the word in his head until it sounds like something else entirely.)

 

❀

 

“It’s fine,” he tells Muku over coffee at the university café. “More importantly, how’s the template yankee?”

Muku’s eyes start to shine. “Ju-chan’s great! He’s still really shy, but he let me hold his hand the other day while we were watching TV, and I got to feed him chocolate-covered strawberries for dessert. Oh, but I’d _really_ have loved to do something else with the – ”

“That’s enough,” Yuki says. “I didn’t ask for details.” It’s obvious enough that things are going well, though, so he relaxes into a smile and tells Muku he’s happy for him. “Just be careful,” he warns, when Muku launches into another speech about what they did on their date the other day. “It’ll be difficult if you get found out.”

Muku leans over and whispers, cheeks blooming a frostbitten red, "Isn't that a little thrilling too? …Ah, but what if we get seen by someone from a news outlet, and they put our relationship in the headlines, and all of Ju-chan's fans get super mad, and after a bunch of stuff happens we end up having to elope to the Caribbean islands and catch fish for a living, except at one point we catch a fish that's actually a monster aiming to take over the world, and...!"

"Yeah," Yuki says, brows wrinkling, "I don't know about the Caribbean islands bit." He stirs his coffee a little, watching the steam swirl up and dissipate. "The gossip rag thing is more likely."

Muku seizes up. He puts his head in his hands and groans. “You’re right, of course.”

“Muku.”

“Yes?”

“You’re really okay with this?”

Muku’s entire face radiates joy. “More than okay,” he murmurs, looking down at his hands almost wonderingly. “I still can’t believe it’s real.”

“More real than those tangents you always go off on, at least.”

They’re quiet for a while, draining the rest of their mugs, and then Muku clenches his fists and takes a deep breath. “Are you really okay with it, though?”

Yuki’s a little offended by the question. “You know quite well – ” he begins, but Muku waves his outburst away, taking him by the shoulders from across the table.

“I’m asking you because I understand a little,” Muku tells him. “It’s not so bad in Japan, but I’m just a tiny grain of rice while Ju-chan is a huge fluffy steamed bun, and since we’re cousins people are even more likely to see us together and wonder what Ju-chan is doing with a grain of rice like me.”

“You’re taller than he is,” Yuki points out. “I don’t think anyone’s called you tiny since middle school.”

Muku concedes that point. “The thing is that Tenma-kun is a prince, right? He wants to take care of you like his precious bonsai trees.”

“I’m not a tree.”

“Exactly!” Muku’s eyes are shining again, making him look five years younger than he actually is. He’s never lost the spark of hope – and often delusion – that lets him look at a sham elite like Itaru and see a proper adult. “You’re so strong, Yuki. Tenma-kun knows that, but he has trouble understanding these things.”

That makes Yuki laugh. “Did you just call our great leader an idiot?”

Muku blushes, tripping over his tongue as he backtracks, but the damage is done. _Even Muku thinks you’re an idiot,_ he taps out of habit, fingers hovering over the ‘send’ button for a fraction of a second before he decides to just go for it.

The irony of it all is that Muku is one of the only people Yuki can allow himself to be weak in front of. “Thanks.”

Muku smiles at him. “Tenma’s not the only person who wants you to be happy, you know.”

 

❀

 

(They’re in the room one night and Tenma’s voice is getting louder with each line he recites in an attempt to drown out the sound of the sewing machine.

“Don’t look away,” he orders the air in front of him. “I’m telling you I love you.”

Yuki could blame any number of factors – a lack of sleep; a lapse of common sense – but when he thinks about it afterwards, there’s probably a part of his subconscious that was tired of hiding. "I love you too, you good-for-nothing actor."

Tenma’s head snaps around to stare at him. “What?”

“What?” Yuki stares back evenly, forcing himself to keep calm even as he feels the heat rising in his cheeks. “You’ve never been confessed to before?”

“Who do you think I am?” Tenma demands, predictable as always, but then he quietens, digging his fingers into his chair. “Are you offering to be my acting partner?”

He’s giving Yuki a way out, but Yuki isn’t the sort of coward who takes shortcuts with his work. “I’m not.”

“I can’t go out with you,” Tenma says. He’s completely missing the point.

Yuki rolls his eyes. “I’m not stupid.” He’s thought about it before – every possible iteration of the public response to seeing someone like him next to Tenma. Very few of them are favourable. “Nothing has to change.”

“No, that doesn’t make sense!”

Tenma is serious about all the things Yuki wishes he wouldn’t be serious about. Life would be easier if he was one or the other, but instead Tenma insists on taking proper care of his plants when he can’t even remember the way home from the shopping district.

“I like you too,” he tells Yuki, stumbling over the words. It’s a stark contrast to his slick-edged vows to the air just a few minutes back, but Yuki’s heart starts to race all the same. “I can’t act the same if I know you like me too.”

“Then let’s go out after all,” Yuki decides. He’s come this far.

“My contract – ”

“Your contract doesn’t have to know.” He knows he’s pushing, but Tenma is weak to this sort of pressure.

“I-If you’re going that far, it can’t be helped!”

Tenma still looks worried, but he’s blushing, bouncing his legs nervously, and Yuki strides over, bunches up the fabric of Tenma’s shirt. “Drop the act,” he orders, dragging him close. Tenma smells like dahlias and sunflower seeds, skin creams and spices – Yuki kisses them out of him one by one, until the softness of Tenma’s lips turns rough and bruised; until Tenma folds under him, breath ragged, chest heaving.

_I did that,_ Yuki thinks. _That’s mine._ )

 

❀

 

_Stop corrupting Muku,_ Tenma texts back, a whole day late. _Sorry about the other night. I guess it might be better to give each other some space after all?_

_It’s better for you not to think about it,_ Yuki writes. _The more you think about it, the more awkward it becomes. Just be yourself._

_I’ll try._

He’ll succeed too, given enough time. Tenma puts in enough effort to make him seem like a genius when he’s actually just stupid.

Yuki turns his attention back to the table. Banri and Tsumugi are watching him carefully from above their shared parfait. “You said I could talk. Help me.”

"It was easy for us," Banri says, shrugging. "People already kinda suspected, y'know? Since we're both a bit..." – he waves his hand vaguely, scrunches his nose. "Tenma is technically a celebrity, so I suppose it's different for you."

"That good-for-nothing actor," Yuki huffs, the words falling soft and muted from his lips. He eyes Banri’s hand covering Tsumugi's, the glint of diamond almost blinding in the sun, and allows himself a brief, vicious stab of jealousy. “Banri, you were the one who suggested taking things public, right?”

“Well, it was about time.” Banri leans back and kisses Tsumugi on the cheek. “What about it?”

“It was easy for you, since people already avoid you on the streets, but didn’t you think about Tsumugi?”

The air at the table cools in an instant. Banri’s eyes narrow. “What are you trying to say?”

“I’m saying you’re almost as much of an idiot as that guy,” Yuki tells him. “If you didn’t think about it, you’re just lucky it went well. Tsumugi cares too much about other people’s opinions.”

“I’ve gotten better,” Tsumugi protests, before Banri can start shouting, “but I was a little concerned.”

“ _What?_ You didn’t tell me; we could have waited – ”

“I didn’t want to wait.” Tsumugi squeezes Banri’s hand and smiles at him, tender. “You were right when you said it was about time.”

“You still should have told me,” insists Banri. He chews on his straw, wrenching his fingers from Tsumugi’s grasp and running them through his hair. “You didn’t have to worry on your own.”

“Perhaps. That’s what Tasuku said, too. Even Juza-kun told me you weren’t the sort of person who’d tie themselves in knots over a stranger’s assessment of them. And Azuma – ”

Banri holds up a hand. “Wait. _Wait_. How many people did you talk to about this?” Tsumugi laughs, sheepish, and Banri shakes his head. He’s smiling fondly now, rocking back in his chair to look up at the clear skies above. “Everyone except me, clearly.”

“Sorry.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter now. But you’d better not do it again.”

“Pinky swear,” Tsumugi agrees, twining their hands together again. He turns back to Yuki. “Sometimes we worry about things that we know aren’t actually an issue. I thought that even if Banri committed to me, it’d still be painful for him if people weren’t supportive. He was still so young; rather than lead him down a difficult path I wondered whether it might be better to end things now and let him move on.”

Banri’s grip on Tsumugi’s hand tightens. “I wouldn’t have let you.”

“I love you too,” Tsumugi replies calmly, sending Banri into a coughing fit. “See, Yuki, selfless thoughts aren’t always right. People turn silly when they’re in love.”

“Some people are idiots no matter what state of mind they’re in,” says Yuki. He swipes the bill and stands, ignoring Tsumugi’s burgeoning protest. “As thanks.”

“We’ll just stuff cash in your purse later,” Banri tells him. “Don’t underestimate your elders.”

Yuki laughs, finally, feeling like he’s shed a heavy coat. “A yankee forcing people to take money instead of give it up? You really are a new breed.”

 

❀

 

(Yuki is only human. Seeing ads on the huge screens that loom over the traffic crossings, catching glimpses of glittering diamond in shop windows – there is a circle called ‘normality’ that Yuki has always been on the outside of. Likes, dislikes; society leaves him no room to explain himself before it passes him off as an outsider. Yuki is accustomed to this.

But he is only human.

“That’s an ad for the movie you were filming for last May, isn’t it?” He points at the scene unfolding on the big TV behind Tenma. “Another romance?”

Tenma shrugs. “Well, that’s the sort of thing that sells. …Ah, don’t watch this bit.”

Yuki’s about to ask why when he sees real-life Tenma’s blush align with on-screen Tenma’s flustered expression. His co-star closes her eyes. Yuki’s eyes are glued to the screen the whole time they kiss. He’s seen it before, of course – Tenma doesn’t like to talk about his roles unless there’s a reason, but Kazunari and Taichi both stalk his schedule with freakish accuracy, and since they watch the shows in the living room it often turns into a company movie night – but it’s different again with just him and Tenma, when Yuki is acutely aware of Tenma’s presence beside him. It’s different when he can see Tenma’s tongue flick over his co-star’s lips and immediately recall the feel of Tenma’s breath ghosting over his skin, when on-screen Tenma looks at the camera and Yuki sees every similarity this version bears to the Tenma standing nervously in front of him.

On-screen Tenma _is_ real-life Tenma, at a place and time Yuki doesn’t know. They are one and the same, and of course Tenma has kissed other people before.

“You look like you’re dying,” Yuki says. His voice only trembles a little.)

 

❀

 

Tenma is back in their room tonight. He’s lounging on his bed in an effort to seem casual, but all his acting talent is going to waste because he’s fidgeting so hard Yuki can feel the vibrations from across the room.

“I’ve changed my mind,” Yuki remarks conversationally. “You’re an idiot, and I don’t take orders from idiots.”

Tenma squeaks, sitting up violently. “What?”

“Have you lost the ability to comprehend Japanese, too?” Yuki spits the words out before he can regret them, slashing a savage pencil line across his costume drafts. “You don’t get to decide what’s fair to me or not.”

It seems Tenma is starting to grasp the situation. He clambers down to Yuki, almost tripping over himself in his haste to get over. “Wait, Yuki, we’ve been through this already – ”

“Since when have I cared about your feelings anyway?” Yuki wonders, silencing Tenma’s concerns. “You want me to pretend I don’t like you anymore? You want me to pine away hoping someday I’ll wake up and I won’t be in love with you anymore?” He takes a deep breath, shaking his head. “I’m not that pathetic.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Tenma says, spreading his hands out.

“I know.” Yuki’s small smile catches Tenma off-guard. “But you know, I’d rather wait a lifetime for you than give up here.”

Tenma’s shoulders slump. He puts his arms around Yuki, drawing him in. His chin rests light on Yuki’s shoulder. “You shouldn’t have to.”

Yuki remembers acting with Tenma for the first time – he remembers the shock of being swept away under Tenma’s hold of the scenario, unable to do anything but respond to Tenma’s lead. He likes to think he’s grown somewhat since then – more able to hold his own. He wants to stand beside Tenma – not as the second lead, or the costume designer waiting in the wings, but as the dual protagonist, looking out at the audience with the same perspective. “Neither should you,” Yuki says, the words folding over themselves like cloth, “but that’s not my choice to make, is it?”

 

❀

 

(Yuki has some pride in his eyes; he can tell the quality of a fabric by sight, or separate outfits into patterns as he views them. He imagines that in several decades’ time, Banri and Tsumugi will be like those irritating old grandparents who stick their noses into every aspect of their children’s lives. Muku will probably have Juza completely under his thumb, and the sham elite will _still_ be hiding all alone in his room with his mountain of games and utter lack of common sense. 

And no matter what scenario Yuki dreams up, Tenma’s name will still resound in household, his face splashed over television screens. Tenma is not the sort of actor who will allow himself to be forgotten.

This is what Yuki truly thinks, the first time he meets Tenma.)

 

❀

 

_– Veludo TV, OO Aug 20XX_

“There is beauty to be found in the memories that only remain in your heart,” says Tenma, “but there is beauty in the things that last, too. We hope to explore both concepts in our next play here at the MANKAI Theatre.”

The reporter nods; the camera pans up to show the large signboard above them. “I’m looking forwards to seeing it. Speaking of which, Tenma-kun, you look like you have something to say.”

Tenma smiles. He looks to the camera, smiling faintly at somebody across the glass. “I do.”


End file.
